A new approach examined two aspects of chess skill, long a popular topic in cognitive science. A powerful computer‐chess program calculated the number and magnitude of blunders made by the same 23 grandmasters in hundreds of serious games of slow (“classical”) chess, regular “rapid” chess, and rapid “blindfold” chess, in which opponents transmit moves without ever seeing the actual position. Rapid chess led to substantially more and larger blunders than classical chess. Perhaps more (...) surprisingly, the frequency and magnitude of blunders did not differ in rapid versus blindfold play, despite the additional memory and visualization load imposed by the latter. We discuss the involvement of various cognitive processes in human problem‐solving and expertise, especially with respect to chess. Prior opposing views about the basis of general chess skill have emphasized the dominance of either (a) swift pattern recognition or (b) analyzing ahead, but both seem important and the controversy appears currently unresolvable and perhaps fruitless. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present the idea which served as a prototype and probably a test field for the idea of the well-known Turing test. This idea is the ‘paper machine’ (an algorithm) for playing chess and the proposal to test its abil-ities in confrontation with a human chess player. I will describe the details of this proposal and discuss it in the light of the Turing test setting.

Gilligan’s (1982) refinement of Kohlberg’s theory on moral development operates on two theses: (1) females, more so than males, reach moral decisions based on the personalities of the relevant individuals; and (2) female behaviors stemming from moral decisions are based upon “care” and “responsibility for others.” This article accepts the first thesis but argues that the second is incorrect. That is, self-interest—i.e., aiding “blood” kin and/or carefully monitoring reciprocity—rather than “altruism” is argued to be the operant dynamic in forging distaff (...) morality and resultant behavior. Six empirical examples are presented as contraindicative of Gilligan’s second thesis. Finally, it is suggested that selection for the psychological traits of independence and the mastery of subtle social chess yielded ancestral females who had more descendants—us—than did females with alternative profiles. (shrink)

In this paper I present some reasons for seeing Duchamp's ready-mades as part of the history of sculpture and relate them to his engagement with both nudes and chess motifs.

A wide range of expressions are predicable literally or primarily only of human beings and of creatures that behave like them. The English word 'mind' is connected primarily with the intellect and the will. To have a mind to do something is to be inclined or tempted to do it, and to have half a mind to do something is to be sorely tempted, perhaps against one's better judgement. Artificial‐intelligence scientists insist that they are already building machines that can think (...) and see, recognize and identify, make choices and decisions. Chess‐playing machines can 'beat' chess‐masters, and computers can 'calculate' far more efficiently and quickly than mathematicians. Machines, unlike living creatures, do not have a body, although they are bodies. Machines and their parts have purposes and functions: viz. those which they were designed to fulfil. (shrink)

Apart from a short clarification of what neuro-doping is, the aim of this article is twofold. First to give a few reasons in favour of having a special issue on neuro-doping. Second to present an overview of the articles in this issue. One reason for having this special issue, is that it needs to be established whether methods such as transcranial direct-current stimulation should be added to World Anti-Doping Agency’s prohibited list or not, as it is currently under discussion by (...) WADA. Another reason for dealing with the ethics of neuro-doping is that ethical analysis of the use or possible use of neuro-doping in sport is a neglected subject. This issue cover a wide range of ethical analyses of the use of neuro-doping among athletes, chess players, e-gamers and even couch potatoes. For example, whether tDCS ought to be prohibited by WADA and/or the state; or whether its use ought to be promoted by the state; whether the use of neuro-doping is unfair; or whether it should be allowed for businesses to advertise high-sugar, high-caffeine beverages to youngsters. (shrink)

Modern knowledge of servo systems and computing machines makes it possible to specify a circuit that can and will induce the rules and winning moves in a game like chess when they are given only ostensibly, that is, by playing against opponents who quit when illegal or losing moves are made. Such circuits enjoy a value social in the sense that it is shared by the players.La connaissance moderne des servomécanismes et des machines à calculer permet de concevoir un (...) circuit qui pourra suivre des règles et décider les coups décisifs dans un jeu comme le jeu d'échecs tout au moins quand les coups sont joués de faÇon apparente, c'est-à-dire contre des adversaires qui abandonneront dans le cas de coups irréguliers ou de coups absurdes.De tels circuits possèdent une „valeur” sociale dans la mesure où elle est partagée par les autres joueurs.Moderne Kenntnissen im Gebiete von Folgegeraeten und Rechenmaschinen ermoeglichen es einen elektrischen Kreis aufzuwerfen, der die Regeln und gewinnbringende Zuege eines Spieles wie Schach induktiv erfassen kann und wird, wenn diese Regeln und Zuege nur ostensiv gegeben sind; d.h. indem mit Gegnern gespielt wird, die das Spiel einstellen sobald regelwidrige oder verlustbringende Zuege gemacht werden. Solche Kreise schaffen demnach einen Wert, der gesellschaftlich in dem Sinn ist, dass er auch von den Mitspielern geteilt wird. (shrink)

In 2017 AlphaZero, a neural network-based chess engine shook the chess world by convincingly beating Stockfish, the highest-rated chess engine. In this paper, I describe the technical differences between the two chess engines and based on that, I discuss the impact of the modeling choices on the respective epistemic opacities. I argue that the success of AlphaZero’s approach with neural networks and reinforcement learning is counterbalanced by an increase in the epistemic opacity of the resulting model.

Research in Artificial Intelligence has always had a very strong relationship with games and game-playing, and especially with chess. Workers in AI have always denied that this interest was more than purely accidental. Parlor games, they claimed, became a favorite topic of interest because they provided the ideal test case for any simulation of intelligence. Chess is the Drosophila of AI, it was said, with reference to the fruit-fly whose fast reproductive cycle made it into a favorite test (...) bed for genetic theories for almost a century. In this paper I will try to show Artificial Intelligence’s relationship to games is quite different from what this analogy suggests. In fact, I will argue that AI is, at core, a theory of games and a theory of subjectivity as game-playing. (shrink)

As described in Benjamin Hale’s Introduction to “Philosophy Looks at Chess”: -/- “Deb Vossen asks whether chess can rightly be considered a game in the first place. She concludes, much to the surprise of many readers, that chess is not a game. Her evocative claim turns on a distinction between a game and the idea of a game, which evolved out of Bernard Suits’s phenomenally underappreciated work The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia. She advances this position by (...) way of a technical argument that employs Suits’s discussion of “prelusory” goals and “lusory” attitudes. The word “lusory” generally means sporty or playful; and in Suits’s sense, it means that when we engage in the play of chess, we must enter the lusory attitude. She uses the notion of a prelusory goal to argue that such goals exist in a game (in this case, a game of chess) but not at all in the idea of the game (in the idea of chess).”. (shrink)

This paper reconvenes Samuel Beckett’s psychotherapy with Wilfred Bion during 1934–1936 during which time Beckett’s conceived and began writing this second novel, Murphy . Based on Beckett’s visits to the Bethlem & Maudsley Hospital and his observation of the male nurses, the climax of Murphy is a chess match between Mr Endon (a male schizophrenic patient) and Murphy (a male psychiatric nurse). The precise notation of the Endon v Murphy chess match tells us that the Beckett intended it (...) to be an exemplar of an anti-match, perhaps a metaphor for the tragedy of being locked into madness. It is also argued that the match offers us insight into Beckett’s experience of the process of psychotherapy with Bion. Based on new information from Beckett’s nephew and Bion’s widow, hypotheses about the long term impact of the Bion-Beckett analysis are advanced as a mutual experience which shaped the lives and later literary output of both men, producing conjoined career writings which continue to offer us stark and sublime condensations of depression, psychosis, and the challenges of therapy and recovery. (shrink)

Richard Kraut’s intriguing and provocative book, The Quality of Life, offers a sustained defence of strong experientialism (perhaps also a surprising defence, f.

This book offers a collection of contemporary essays that explore philosophical themes at work in chess. This collection includes essays on the nature of a game, the appropriateness of chess as a metaphor for life, and even deigns to query whether Garry Kasparov might—just might—be a cyborg. In twelve unique essays, contributed by philosophers with a broad range of expertise in chess, this book poses both serious and playful questions about this centuries-old pastime. -/- Perhaps more interestingly, (...) philosophers have often used chess in discussions of their work. Walter Benjamin compares the marching of history to an automaton playing chess. John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce utilize chess to explain their pragmatism. The linguist Ferdinand de Saussure employs the analogy of chess to explain the exchange of signifiers. There are approximately 181 uses of the word chess or one of its cognates in the published works of Ludwig Wittgenstein. John Rawls explains that one might want to make a distinction between constitutive and regulative rules, which can best be understood by examining a game of chess. John Searle, deeply convinced of this distinction, explains further: "The rules of football or chess are given as an example of constitutive rules because they 'create the very possibility of playing such games.'" Hubert Dreyfus and Daniel Dennett have had extensive public discussions about the issue of artificial intelligence and chess. Dreyfus, utilizing chess examples, has written extensively on what computers still cannot do. Meanwhile, in spite of his protestations, chess-playing computers continue to fascinate those who work in the area of artificial intelligence. -/- The game of chess has endured since at least the sixth century. Its earliest variant, the Indian game of Chaturanga, was from the beginning a game for thinkers. Since its inception, scholars, statesmen, strategists, and warriors have been fascinated by the game and its variants. German philosopher Emmanuel Lasker and famed French artist Marcel Duchamp were both Grandmasters at chess. Karl Marx played chess avidly, as did Sir Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, and the logical positivist Max Black. Jean-Jacques Rousseau mentions in his Confessions that, at the time, he "had another expedient, not less solid, in the game of chess, to which I regularly dedicated, at Maugis's, the evenings on which I did not go to the theater. I became acquainted with M. de Legal, M. Husson, Philidor, and all the great chess players of the day, without making the least improvement in the game." More recently, philosopher Stuart Rachels reports that his father, the late philosopher and prominent ethicist James Rachels, received a bribe from a Russian Grandmaster while he was the chair of the U.S. Chess Federation's Ethics committee. -/- "Whether you’re a professional philosopher, an armchair chess player, or something in between, Philosophy Looks at Chess gives you hours of thought-provoking reading. With chapters on technology, ethics, hip hop, and backward analysis, this book carves out a new space in the literature on both chess and philosophy" -/- —Jennifer Shahade, two-time U.S. Women's Champion and author of Chess Bitch -/- "Chess and philosophy are natural mates that have been awaiting the proper introduction. This wide-ranging collection of stimulating essays is the perfect opening gambit for philosophical chess enthusiasts." -/- —Will Dudley, author of Hegel, Nietzsche, and Philosophy: Thinking Freedom. (shrink)

In a recent Analysis piece, John Shand (2014) argues that the Predictive Theory of Mind provides a unique explanation for why one cannot play chess against oneself. On the basis of this purported explanatory power, Shand concludes that we have an extra reason to believe that PTM is correct. In this reply, we first rectify the claim that one cannot play chess against oneself; then we move on to argue that even if this were the case, Shand’s argument (...) does not give extra weight to the Predictive Theory of Mind. (shrink)

This article discusses substances/techniques that target the brain in order to enhance sports performance (known as “neurodoping”). It considers whether neurodoping in mind sports, such as chess, is unethical and whether it should be a crime. Rather than focusing on widely discussed objections against doping based on harm/risk to health, this article focuses specifically on the objection that neurodoping, even if safe, would undermine the “spirit of sport”. Firstly, it briefly explains why chess can be considered a sport. (...) Secondly, it outlines some possible substances/methods that could be used in order to enhance chess performance and justifies the article’s focus on one potential form of neurodoping in particular – “mental stamina enhancement”. Thirdly, this article casts doubt on certain arguments that mental stamina enhancement would be unethical and contrary to the spirit of sport (as defined by WADA). This article stresses the importance of distinguishing the ethical argument that doping violates the “spirit of sport” from the definitional objection that once doping becomes routine in a certain “sport”, it would not count as a sport anymore. The fourth section discusses the definitional objection and argues that mental stamina enhancement in chess might disqualify chess from being a “sport” (according to traditional, rather than revisionist definitions of sport). Yet, it argues that this definitional objection does not provide strong enough grounds to justify the state or sports authorities imposing severe penalties (such as criminalisation or life-long suspensions from competing) for non-harmful neurodoping. The fifth section of the article argues that criminalising non-harmful neurodoping would be disproportionate. (shrink)

We question Spelke's key claim that the medium, in which contents from different core knowledge systems can be represented and combined, is language-based. Recalling an episodic memory, playing chess, and conducting mental rotation are tasks where core knowledge information is represented and combined. Although these tasks can be described by means of language, these tasks are not inherently language-based. Hence, language may be an important subset of an abstraction medium – not the medium as such.

This article examines the history of the creation of game theory as a phenomenon of culture and art. Contribution of theorists and artists of the twentieth century in the formation of game theory, its place in modern art criticism and philosophy. The significance and influence of the personality of Marcel Duchamp, surrealist artists in creating a modern understanding of the game in art and in life. The subject of the research in this article is such concepts as the game and (...) its place in art criticism in general, and the role and significance of the chess game in particular, using the example of the creativity and activity of Marcel Duchamp. The author's view on understanding the problem of the mutual influence of the chess game and artistic creativity is proposed. An attempt is made to explain the motivation for choosing a game as an artistic principle and method. How important is the use of the game in creating an artistic image, the creative image of the artist is also significant. The methodology of the study is based on the basic principles of the game theory of Roger Caillois and Johan Huising in relation to the chess strategy of Marcel Duchamp. The novelty of this work lies in drawing attention to the role and significance of the chess game on creativity, the influence on the aesthetic, artistic and philosophical views of the artist. (shrink)

Howard's (2005) claim that male dominance in chess is 'consistent with the evolutionary psychology view that males predominate at high achievement levels at least partly because of ability differences' (p. 378) is based on the premise that top level chess skill depends on a high level of IQ and visuospatial abilities. This premise is not supported by empirical evidence. In 1927 Djakow et al. first showed that world-class chess players do not have exceptional intellectual abilities. This finding (...) has subsequently been confirmed many times. Different participation rates, or differences in the amount of practice, motivation and interest for chess in male and female chess players, may provide a better explanation for gender differences in chess performance. (shrink)

An online game of chess against a human opponent appears to be indistinguishable from a game against a machine: both happen on the screen. Yet, people prefer to play chess against other people despite the fact that machines surpass people in skill. When the philosophers of 1970’s and 1980’s argued that computers will never surpass us in chess, perhaps their intuitions were rather saying “Computers will never be favored as opponents”? In this paper we analyse through the (...) introduced concepts of psychological affordances and psychological interplay, what are the mechanisms that make a human-human interaction more meaningful than a human-computer interaction. We claim that an HH chess game consists of two intertwined, but independent simultaneous games—only one of which is retained in the HC game. To help with the analysis we introduce the thought experiment of a Preferential Engagement Test which is inspired by, but non-equivalent to, the Standard Turing Test. We also explore how the PET can illuminate, and be illuminated by, various philosophies of mind reading: Theory Theory, Simulation Theory and Mind Minding. We propose that our analysis along with the concept of PET could illuminate in a new way the conditions and challenges a machine must face before it can replace humans in a given occupation. (shrink)

The well-known game of chess has traditionally been modeled in artificial intelligence studies by search engines with advanced pruning techniques. The models were thus centered on an inference engine manipulating passive symbols in the form of tokens. It is beyond doubt, however, that human players do not carry out such processes. Instead, chess masters instead carry out perceptual processes, carefully categorizing the chunks perceived in a position and gradually building complex dynamic structures to represent the subtle pressures embedded (...) in the positions. In this paper we will consider two hypotheses concerning the underlying subcognitive processes and architecture. In the first hypothesis, a multiple-leveled chess representational structure is presented, which includes distance graphs (with varying levels of quality) between pieces, piece mobilities, and abstract roles. These representational schemes seem to account for numerous characteristics of human player’s psychology. The second hypothesis concerns the extension of the architecture proposed in the Copycat project as central for modeling the emergent intuitive perception of a chess position. We provide a synthesis on how the postulated architecture models chess intuition as an emergent mixture of simultaneous distance estimations, chunk perceptions, abstract role awareness, and intention activations. This is an alternative model to the traditional AI approaches, focusing on the philosophy of active symbols. (shrink)

One of the most influential studies in all expertise research is de Groot’s (1946) study of chess players, which suggested that pattern recognition, rather than search, was the key determinant of expertise. Many changes have occurred in the chess world since de Groot’s study, leading some authors to argue that the cognitive mechanisms underlying expertise have also changed. We decided to replicate de Groot’s study to empirically test these claims and to examine whether the trends in the data (...) have changed over time. Six Grandmasters, five International Masters, six Experts, and five Class A players completed the think-aloud procedure for two chess positions. Findings indicate that Grandmasters and International Masters search more quickly than Experts and Class A players, and that both groups today search substantially faster than players in previous studies. The findings, however, support de Groot’s overall conclusions and are consistent with predictions made by pattern recognition models. (shrink)

Linhares and Brum (2007) argue that they provide evidence for analogy as the main principle behind experts’ acquisition of perceptual knowledge. However, the methodology they used—asking players to pair positions using abstract similarity—raises the possibility that the task reflects more the effect of directional instructions than the principles underlying the acquisition of knowledge. Here we replicate and extend Linhares and Brum’s experiment and show that the matching task they used is inadequate for drawing any conclusions about the nature of experts’ (...) perception. When expert chess players were instructed to match problems based on similarities at the abstract level (analogy), they produced more abstract pairs than pairs based on concrete similarity. However, the same experts produced more concrete pairs than abstract ones when instructed to match the problems based on concrete similarity. Asking experts to match problems using explicit instructions is not an appropriate way to show the importance of either analogy or similarity in the acquisition of expert knowledge. Experts simply do what they are told to do. (shrink)

In a famous study of expert problem solving, de Groot (1946/1978) examined how chess players found the best move. He reported that there was little difference in the way that the best players (Grand Masters) and very good players (Candidate Masters) searched the board. Although this result has been regularly cited in studies of expertise, it is frequently misquoted. It is often claimed that de Groot found no difference in the way that experts and novices investigate a problem. Comparison (...) of expert and novice chess players on de Groot's problem shows that there are clear differences in their search patterns. We discuss the troublesome theoretical and practical consequences of incorrectly reporting de Groot's findings. (shrink)

To gain insight into human nature philosophers often discuss the inferior performance that results from deficits such as blindsight or amnesia. Less often do they look at superior abilities. A notable exception is Herbert Dreyfus who has developed a theory of expertise according to which expert action generally proceeds automatically and unreflectively. We address one of Dreyfus’s primary examples of expertise: chess. At first glance, chess would seem an obvious counterexample to Dreyfus’s view since, clearly, chess experts (...) are engaged in deep strategic thought. However, Dreyfus’s argument is subtle. He accepts that analysis and deliberation play a role in chess, yet he thinks that all such thought is predicated on intuitive, arational expert perception, and action. We argue that even the so-called intuitive aspect of chess is rational through and through. (shrink)

Seyla Benhabib’s Exile, Statelessness, and Migration: Playing Chess with History from Hannah Arendt to Isaiah Berlin is a complex and remarkable book that defies easy categorization. While the titl...

I have argued previously that the art of absolute music, unlike, for example, the art of literature, is not capable of profundity, which I characterized as treating a profound subject matter, at the highest artistic level, in a manner appropriate to its profundity. Stephen Davies has recently argued that there is another way of being profound, which he calls non-propositional profundity, and for which chess provides his principal example. He argues, further, that absolute music also exhibits this non-propositional profundity. (...) I argue in the present paper that Davies's attempt to rescue profundity for absolute music will not work, because it does not allow what I take to be the crucial distinction between great works of absolute music that are profound and great works of absolute music that are not. In other words, it has the unwelcome implication that all great works of absolute music are profound works. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question what the fundamental nature and mode of being of institutional reality is. Besides the recent debate with Tony Lawson, Barry Smith is also one of the relatively few authors to have explicitly challenged John Searle's social ontology on this metaphysical question, with Smith's realism requirement for institutions conflicting with Searle's requirement of a one-world naturalism. This paper proposes that an account of institutions as powers or dispositions is not only congenial to Searle's general account, but (...) can also satisfy both the realism and the one world requirements. Searle's worry that such a dispositional account is unable to account for the deontic nature of institutions is countered by an appeal to higher-order powers as well as Searle's notion of the gap and desire-independent reasons for action. (shrink)

In a famous study of expert problem solving, de Groot (1946/1978) examined how chess players found the best move. He reported that there was little difference in the way that the best players (Grand Masters) and very good players (Candidate Masters) searched the board. Although this result has been regularly cited in studies of expertise, it is frequently misquoted. It is often claimed that de Groot found no difference in the way that experts and novices investigate a problem. Comparison (...) of expert and novice chess players on de Groot's problem shows that there are clear differences in their search patterns. We discuss the troublesome theoretical and practical consequences of incorrectly reporting de Groot's findings. (shrink)

An examination of the intertwined lives and writings of a group of prominent twentieth-century Jewish thinkers who experienced exile and migration Exile, Statelessness, and Migration explores the intertwined lives, careers, and writings of a group of prominent Jewish intellectuals during the mid-twentieth century—in particular, Theodor Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Isaiah Berlin, Albert Hirschman, and Judith Shklar, as well as Hans Kelsen, Emmanuel Levinas, Gershom Scholem, and Leo Strauss. Informed by their Jewish identity and experiences of being outsiders, these thinkers (...) produced one of the most brilliant and effervescent intellectual movements of modernity. Political philosopher Seyla Benhabib’s starting point is that these thinkers faced migration, statelessness, and exile because of their Jewish origins, even if they did not take positions on specifically Jewish issues personally. The sense of belonging and not belonging, of being “eternally half-other,” led them to confront essential questions: What does it mean for the individual to be an equal citizen and to wish to retain one’s ethnic, cultural, and religious differences, or perhaps even to rid oneself of these differences altogether in modernity? Benhabib isolates four themes in their works: dilemmas of belonging and difference; exile, political voice, and loyalty; legality and legitimacy; and pluralism and the problem of judgment. Surveying the work of influential intellectuals, Exile, Statelessness, and Migration recovers the valuable plurality of their Jewish voices and develops their universal insights in the face of the crises of this new century. (shrink)

Seyla Benhabib’s Exile, Statelessness, and Migration: Playing Chess with History from Hannah Arendt to Isaiah Berlin is a complex and remarkable book that defies easy categorization. While the titl...

In this paper, we argue that, contra Strevens (2013), understanding in the sciences is sometimes partially constituted by the possession of abilities; hence, it is not (in such cases) exhausted by the understander’s bearing a particular psychological or epistemic relationship to some set of structured propositions. Specifically, the case will be made that one does not really understand why a modeled phenomenon occurred unless one has the ability to actually work through (meaning run and grasp at each step) a model (...) simulation of the underlying dynamic. (shrink)

Sports and competitive games of many kinds—from tag to chess to baseball—are often occasions for make-believe. To participate either as a competitor or as a spectator is frequently to engage in pretense. The activities of playing and watching games have this in common with appreciating works of fiction and participating in children’s make-believe activities, although the make-believe in sports, masked by real interests and concerns, is less obvious than it is in the other cases. What is most interesting about (...) tag and chess and baseball, however, are the ways in which the make-believe they involve differs from other varieties. (shrink)

Concepts, Kovesi argued in Moral Notions and elsewhere, are formed from a point of view; they express relevant needs, wants, interests, ideals, and attitudes, and are formed from a point of view that can be anybody’s. The point of view need not be everybody’s (not everybody is interested in chess, for example), but it is a point of view that can be taken by anybody. The point of view expresses our purpose in forming the concept (p. 48)1; it is (...) the point of view of somebody dealing with certain sorts of problems, and that determines which material elements will come under the concept. But Kovesi refuses to explain in any of his writings what the moral point of view is, and says that it is no part of his project to explain that (see especially pp. 105 ff). This is not a matter of his refusing to say whether he is taking a Utilitarian point of view or an Emotivist point of view of anything of that sort. His question is a much more basic one about the logical structure of moral concepts and their relationships to the problems morality is formed to deal with. His refusal to explain the moral point of view is puzzling. The moral point of view that Kovesi envisaged, I think, is the point of view of members of a species the members of which have to get on together, a species members of which have the qualities of character that enable them to get on together. (shrink)

This paper deals with Frege’s early critique of formalism in the philosophy of mathematics. Frege opposes meaningful arithmetic, according to which arithmetical formulas express a sense and arithmetical rules are grounded in the reference of the signs, to formal arithmetic, exemplified in particular by J. Thomae, whose “formal standpoint”, according to Frege, is that arithmetic should be understood as a manipulation of meaningless figures. However, Frege’s discussion of Thomae’s analogy between arithmetic and chess shows that Frege does not understand (...) his main point, which is that we must distinguish conceptually between statements about chess figures, and the chess pieces they represent. Indeed, Thomae’s fruitful use of this comparison undermines the ontological conception of arithmetic represented by Frege. The chess pieces do not go proxy for anything, but playing chess is not for that reason just manipulation of physical chess figures. This is also Wittgenstein’s point when he criticizes Frege for not seeing the “justified side of formalism”. Thomae’s formalism can be clarified by using the distinction between sign and symbol. Symbols are never meaningless or empty forms or signs, since they have a role or function in a symbolism, which one may call their meaning. The discussion of the chess analogy shows that Frege fails to see this operative aspect of the symbolism. We can conclude that the “formal standpoint” that Frege criticizes is his fabrication, rather than anything we can attribute to Thomae. (shrink)

Stichter’s The Skillfulness of Virtue provides an original and contemporary discussion of virtue-acquisition from an interdisciplinary standpoint. By equating virtues to skills, he offers an empirically informed progression towards virtue expertise. With the focus on gaining proficiency, there is little room to analyse the status of the virtue-novice, who is equated to a novice in any other skill: an agent consciously following simple rules, gaining experience in order to respond to normatively-laden situations with more automaticity in the following stages of (...) skill-acquisition. This paper argues for a disanalogy between the virtue novice and novices in other skills, resulting from the understanding that follows from learning virtue words such as ‘kindness’ and ‘honesty’. Our brains are structured to find and subsequently use patterns to skilfully move around in our environment. These patterns can be represented in what Stichter calls ‘schemas’ or mental models of categorisations. Virtue words refer to patterns that would be difficult to categorise without linguistic labels, as instances of these categories are highly divergent. Virtue words are thus learned through examples of virtuous behaviour. Moreover, as virtue words are thick ethical concepts, they contain a normative load. I argue that due to these characteristics, novices who use virtue vocabulary are in a more advanced position than novices in other skills. So, a kindness novice who understands the word ‘kind’ has a better idea of how to act kindly than the chess novice has an idea of how to play chess by understanding the word ‘chess’. (shrink)

Early on in the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein lists various examples of the term Sprachspiel. He begins with “commanding and following commands” and ends with “asking a favor, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying,” all familiar ingredients of what we would now call a speech act theory of language. In the middle of this list, however, is an example that has received little attention: “playing theater”.1 With this formulation, Wittgenstein moves away from a focus on games such as chess, which have unduly (...) dominated the discussion of his late philosophy, and toward an expanded notion of play that includes theater.Once one approaches Wittgenstein’s conception of language through the.. (shrink)

Newell argued that progress in psychology was slow because research focused on experiments trying to answer binary questions, such as serial versus parallel processing. In addition, not enough attention was paid to the strategies used by participants, and there was a lack of theories implemented as computer models offering sufficient precision for being tested rigorously. He proposed a three-headed research program: to develop computational models able to carry out the task they aimed to explain; to study one complex task in (...) detail, such as chess; and to build computational models that can account for multiple tasks. This article assesses the extent to which the papers in this issue advance Newell's program. While half of the papers devote much attention to strategies, several papers still average across them, a capital sin according to Newell. The three courses of action he proposed were not popular in these papers: Only two papers used computational models, with no model being both able to carry out the task and to account for human data; there was no systematic analysis of a specific video game; and no paper proposed a computational model accounting for human data in several tasks. It is concluded that, while they use sophisticated methods of analysis and discuss interesting results, overall these papers contribute only little to Newell's program of research. In this respect, they reflect the current state of psychology and cognitive science. This is a shame, as Newell's ideas might help address the current crisis of lack of replication and fraud in psychology. (shrink)

(1) The average Mum has 2.4 children. (2) The number of Argle’s fingers equals the number of Bargle’s toes. (3) There are two possible ways in which Joe could win this chess game. In the right contexts, and outside the philosophy room, all the above sentences may be completely uncontroversial. For instance, if we know that Joe could win either by exchanging queens and entering an endgame, or by initiating a kingside attack then, if ignorant of Quine’s work on (...) ontology, we would take (3) to be uncontroversially true. (shrink)

The paper aims to elucidate the elementary premises of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations based on the principle of “language games” through the prism of intertextuality within which his book leads an active dialogue with other texts, by its content belonging to the field of philosophy of language. Wittgenstein’s theory in which examined are the questions of the essence of language, philosophy and meaning, intertwines with the most relevant linguistic movements and theories – especially when the problem of specific perspective on (...) the world is considered, the comparison of language and chess game, as well as the thinking about the inner language, a relation between language and thinking and deep and surface structures. Wittgenstein is being linked to Humboldt, then with the founder of general linguistics de Saussure, Vygotsky and his work Thinking and Speech, and Chomsky’s generative-transformative theory. Since Wittgenstein’s philosophy as a specific paradigm had a response in literature, Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch, being a representative of postmodern novel, will be used as a form of language review and illustration of the described philosophical game. (shrink)

The paper set up a small “philosophical lab” for thought experiments using Digital Universes as its main tool. Digital Universes allow us to examine how mereology affects the debate on New Realism of Ferraris and shed new light on the whole notion of Realism. The semi-formal framework provides a convenient way to model the varieties of realism that are important for the program of New Realism: we then draw the natural consequences of this approach into the ontology of our world, (...) arguing that the same considerations that apply to Digital Universe would hold for chess, institutions and social objects as well. Once a particular version of mereology is chosen, there are unavoidable consequences that the very underlying structure of social ontology. We then propose a new New Realism to tackle social objects: social objects turn out to be nothing more than mereological sums, picked up by some description. (shrink)

Most people agree that murder is wrong. Yet, within computer games virtual murder scarcely raises an eyebrow. In one respect this is hardly surprising, as no one is actually murdered within a computer game. A virtual murder, some might argue, is no more unethical than taking a pawn in a game of chess. However, if no actual children are abused in acts of virtual paedophilia (life-like simulations of the actual practice), does that mean we should disregard these acts with (...) the same abandon we do virtual murder? In this paper I shall outline several arguments which attempt to permit virtual murder, whilst prohibiting virtual paedophilia. (shrink)

Mathematical formalism is the the view that numbers are "signs" and that arithmetic is like a game played with such signs. Frege's colleague Thomae defended formalism using an analogy with chess, and Frege's critique of this analogy has had a major influence on discussions in analytic philosophy about signs, rules, meaning, and mathematics. Here I offer a new interpretation of formalism as defended by Thomae and his predecessors, paying close attention to the mathematical details and historical context. I argue (...) that for Thomae, the formal standpoint is an _algebraic perspective_ on a domain of objects, and a "sign" is not a linguistic expression or mark, but a representation of an object within that perspective. Thomae exploits a shift into this perspective to give a purely algebraic construction of the real numbers from the rational numbers. I suggest that Thomae's chess analogy is intended to provide a model for such shifts in perspective. (shrink)

The human brain is an extraordinary organ. It has allowed us to walk on the moon, *to discover the of matter and life,* and to play chess almost as well as a computer. But this virtuosity raises a puzzle. The brain of Homo sapiens achieved its modern form and size between fifty and a hundred thousand years ago, well before the invention of agriculture, civilizations, and writing in the last ten thousand years. Our foraging ancestors had no occasions to (...) do astrophysics or play chess, and natural selection would not have rewarded them with more babies if they had. How, then, did our outsize, *science-ready* brain evolve? (shrink)

Reflections on Seyla Benhabib’s a. Exile, Statelessness, and Migration: Playing Chess with History from Hannah Arendt to Isaiah Berlin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018.